Name Your Price
by Anneka Neko
Summary: ONESHOT. Lord Coward's eyes are speaking, saying the dirtiest, most unwholesome things Holmes has ever heard, and he's just drinking it in. Holmes/Coward preslash, mentions of Holmes/Watson.


Authoress' Notes:

Well, I started on another Blackwood/Coward piece, but it's not turning out very well, so I decided to run with my Holmes/Coward thing for a bit. B/C's still definitely happening, I just need to figure out exactly where I want to go with it. I'm really enjoying this Holmes/Coward thing, though. I support one-sided H/W, by the way. Read this piece, and take a wild guess which side.

A note: my Coward's always been, let's face it, somewhat of a pushover, because he's dealing with Lord Blackwood. Outside of his interactions with his Lord, however, I see him as being quite a bit more formidable. Keep that in mind while reading. As **That's LEON**, my official B/C buddy, so eloquently pointed out, "a spineless pussy does not become LORD MOTHERFUCKING BLACKWOOD's right hand man." So true.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, the gay would be _way_ more obvious.

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**Name Your Price**

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Holmes is listening to Sir Thomas' voice, but he's hardly interested. A single look into the man's hazel-flecked eyes told him everything he needed to know, and now it's just the nicety, not to mention the comfort of this chair, that keeps him here.

The door opens, and he glances up, curious. Two men enter. One he identifies at once, casually, dismissively: James Standish, American ambassador to Her Majesty the Queen. The other man, though... Holmes finds his gaze arrested, studying the man, trying to take in everything at once. He recognizes him immediately, of course, by his distinctive handmade shoes, as the hooded figure who retreated so quickly from the scene of Blackwood's (seemingly) final crime in the crypt, months ago. What he sees, though, now that the hood no longer covers him, is that the man's face was made for smiling, and that his hair lends him the striking, devilish sort of handsomeness that draws the eye naturally.

He is unsettled by the look in the man's mesmerizingly clear blue eyes. The man (Coward, it seems, is his name) is unabashedly staring at him, and Holmes is beginning to understand why Watson so hates it when he refuses to look away, because Coward is openly devouring him, and it causes a not completely unpleasurable shiver to run down his spine.

Bored by the talk of the men around him (having know their purpose in bringing him here since first laying eyes on Sir Thomas), Holmes takes the book Sir Thomas hands him and flips through it idly. In truth, he is trying to ignore the most blatantly, alluringly _indecent_ look he has ever received. Holmes is a difficult man to ruffle, but Lord Coward's eyes are speaking, saying the dirtiest, most unwholesome things Holmes has ever heard, and his own eyes, try as he might to focus them elsewhere, are drinking it in, listening eagerly to the litany of mingled sin and pleasure promised in those eyes, and Sir Thomas is speaking again, utterly unimportant things, and Holmes' brain is dutifully filing it away, but his eyes keep flicking back to Coward's.

He feels uncomfortable, accustomed as he is to a privacy those eyes refuse to allow him, but he would be a fool to deny the involuntary glow he feels at the worshiping stare, because God knows Watson hasn't worshiped him at _all_ for months, and he's _never_ given Holmes one of the burning, passionate looks he's secretly died for want of for so long. It feels so _good_ to be wanted at all, even if by the wrong man, because it's in right _way_, the way Watson and his damned Church say will send him straight to Hell.

It doesn't change anything, of course. Holmes still knows Coward's true allegiance. He still knows the man is attempting to deceive him, even now. But, he thinks, as he strolls across St. James' Square a number of minutes later, he still wants to feel that gaze again, the eyes that have already enthralled and seduced him so completely. He thinks back on Coward's brash demand with a wry smile. "Name your price," the man commanded, eyes dripping with eager lust.

If damnation and hellfire are to be bought for such pleasures, Holmes is fairly certain he knows exactly what his price is.

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Phweee, I hope you liked it. I'm still testing the waters of this entire fandom, but I feel like my interpretations are pretty steady. I have a few post-Blackwood plans for these two (still completely compliant with the ending of "Five Times Lord Coward Screamed" though), and they look pretty fun.

Also, in case anyone was thinking, "How the hell did she come up with Holmes and Coward together?"

http : // www . hansmatheson . org / sherlock / SHPS2 . jpg

You know the drill-- remove the spaces. Anyways, see that look? That burning, sizzling look? DO WANT. (Also, I love Standish awkwardly in the back, like "Hi guys!" and Sir Thomas like "Why yes, I _did_ know my sideburns are beastly amazing." That reminds me-- I just made up "James" for Standish. I don't care as much about making up a name for him, since I doubt he'll ever be the focus of one of my fics.)

Please review!


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